Ascot...

I tend not to get heavily involved over Ascot. I have had a couple of favs go in as well as Trip To Paris yesterday at 19/1 in the Gold Cup - but otherwise I prefer just to have the TV on in the background. The problem is that there are too many other distractions!

Well, just as Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway - in the movie Heartbreak Ridge - likes to take a peak at Cosmopolitan magazine - I don't mind admitting that I quite like looking at the ladies' hats..


Teddy Bear's picnic


Sore neck?


Cute


Bird of Paradise


Model



Polish anti-racing protestors - note lash marks - quite clever

Trading System Update...

I thought I should update where I am on the Trading System that I was working on.

It started out as a very selective system - and although I don't have an 'itchy trigger finger' - going days in a row without a trade might have proven problematic over the long term.

When I last updated at the end of March we had around 8 points of profit. I spent most of April tweaking things and trying to work out how to get more trades into the market. As a result, at the beginning of May, we hadn't moved much and were still around the 8 point mark but I'd only had a few trades due to this process.

Approaching the middle of May I kicked on again in earnest with some good results. As the months and years go by I will check all my results against distance, course, price, conditions, weight and other useful criteria and perhaps eliminate certain trades that look unprofitable. It's a very long process but there is really no shortcut. This is not a system that can be back-tested. It is something very unique.

The results shown are for a three week period (ten day break over half term)
from 11 May - 10 June. Profit = 48.25 points. It might be wise to expect some kind of draw-down quite shortly...who knows.

Post Note: Apologies, the results sheet below does not lend itself well to the post / blogger. It's probably too large. From now on I will probably just have to post totals only.

Fantasy Justifier...

Great fun was had with Fantasy Justifier the other day - by some people anyway - just goes to show that most punters haven't got a clue if a horse is going to win or not!

Eventually the horse did win.

Exchange Training...

I recently came across Peter Webb's course again. I went on his 'Trading Master Class' course (or equivalent) around ten years ago now. Judging by the list of topics and the audio clip on the site, it sounds as if he has improved on the course substantially - and it was already excellent when I went all those years ago.

Anyone who is starting out / thinking of trading on the betting exchanges could really benefit from Peter's course. Ultimately success will depend on your mindset and discipline but you can take a giant step forward by attending.

I think the course still focuses primarily on the pre-race markets.

Just a heads up really.

Great Start to the Week...

Well it's been a great start to the week. Today, the recently 'pumped up' Hadron Collider starts to deliver data and yesterday Sepp Blatter resigned as FIFA president.

There was better opposition to his appointment this time around but presumably it was the continued allegations of corruption, culminating in the FBI's investigation, that finally told. One thing is for sure, he didn't do it out of honour - he would have been left with no option.

You have to wonder who was voting for him in the first place...Probably those trying to preserve their 'Christmas bonuses'. Anyway this has been about sixteen years overdue.

Blatter said: "Fifa needs profound restructuring." (er...hello?) He also stated that 'he would continue in his current post until an extraordinary congress is called to elect a new president'. No dates have been set, but any 'election' is expected to take place between December 2015 and March 2016.. By that stage he'll probably have forgotten that he ever resigned.


That's right Sepp, off you go - for the game, for the world...and don't forget your water.

Let's get the accountants in and find out where all the money has gone. After the investigations by the Americans and the Swiss have been concluded, I'd be very surprised if we don't have a good degree of evidence to show that Russia and / or Qatar 'bought' their World Cups.

On a more cheerful note, the Hadron Collider resumes it's search for Dark Matter, now with actual data popping out of the machine. Physicists probably won't actually see the Dark Matter - just its impact on other protons. This will just tell them that 'something' is there - but they may never know 'what' exactly.

So why is this beautiful machine buried 100m below Cern, Switzerland. Ok you need space, security, peace and quiet...but you also have to be careful when you are playing with things that you don't fully understand. In theory machines like this can cause damage - although it is unlikely that 100m will make any difference if things 'kick off'.


Careful mate, the stuff in that thing collides with the energy of 13 trillion electron volts..

We have to acknowledge that Einstein's best work might now only explain 5% of the laws of the universe - so there is a lot of 'unexplained stuff' out there. Hadron might get us closer if it doesn't trigger some catastrophic event - what chance of a black hole being created that destroys the planet? One in a billion...probably.

On the positive side Blatter is Swiss and could possibly be one of the first to go.

Big Prices In Running...

Collected a few big priced winners on the graphs a few weeks ago - Tom Dooley being the best of them going out to 1000.0 before going on to win. Around £20.00 was matched at maximum odds.



There was a spate of big priced winners in play around that time - thereafter we had a 400.00, 150.00 and a few more.

I have studied, to a degree, these extreme prices in play (1.01, 1000.0 and so on) but I could only break down the data for a few levels - although some punters may have found an edge or think that they have, I have concluded that it is probably fairly insignificant. I am sure that you could have a good year or two before breaking even and then losing in following years.

The Irish courses have had good years for extreme priced winners / losers in play and of course there are good courses in England too. Yet trying to find trends that stood up over time was hard and I think a horse race is just too Chaotic to try and predict where / when these big priced horses will win.